Principles of the subject of vacuum treatment of wounds are described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,572,340, for example. Here, a container partially evacuated by a vacuum pump withdraws ichor via a drainage port from a wound which was filled by a wound foam such as an open-celled polyurethane foam and was sealed by means of a film so as to be air-tight. As a result, the ichor is drained from the oozing wound and collected in the container which is typically made as a disposable canister. The wound then remains moist in the sense of modern wound care approach. The granulation of a wound is accelerated by the vacuum therapy of wounds. On the average, the wound thus already closes after about 28 days. Very large-area wounds have to be treated for a correspondingly longer period of time.
The vacuum therapy of wounds is used for deep and also flat (superficial) wounds. For this purpose, different wound fillers are correspondingly offered. The suction vacuum produced by the pump must be adapted to the type of wound. In a normal case, wounds are treated by a reduced pressure of 80-120 mmHg (110-169 hPa). Above all, a continuous or an intermittent suction is used among the possible temporal suction pressure patterns. The continuous suction mode of operation proves advantageous with respect to the patient's experience of pain. The tissue is here treated continuously so as to exclude an undesired relief of the tissue.
The canister for receiving the wound exudate is usually mounted on the pump housing in such a way that it is attached to a side of the pump housing or at least partially surrounded by it. Such vacuum treatment devices of wounds are known, for example, from German patent specifications DE 69505545 T2 for a stationary use and DE 69629507 T2 for a mobile use. A further application of the vacuum treatment of wounds is described in U.S. Pat. No. 7,931,651.